


the gentle river in your hands

by lambient



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/F, F/M, Imprinting, but not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lambient/pseuds/lambient
Summary: When Gillian Stanley comes back for her sister's best friend's wedding - no it's not complicated at all - she meets rough around the edges, actually, scratch that, only edges Paul Lahote. Predictably chaos ensues."I have tried to love you softly, and from far away, and in my own time but you are a hurricane, and a tsunami and a thousand natural shocks."
Relationships: Ben Cheney/Angela Weber, Jessica Stanley/Bella Swan, Leah Clearwater/Jessica Stanley, Paul Lahote & Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: lol this is a mistake. Anyways, this might not be your cup of tea if you don't like age gaps, or stupid tropes, or sporadic updates. That said, if you do stick around thaaaank yah.

Gillian Stanley sipped her - _twelve shots of cream and sixteen packets of Splenda, thank you very much_ \- coffee with the vigor and intensity usually reserved for starving mosquitos who've spotted their first bare knee cap of the summer. Her resting heart rate was elevated in a way that would have had her mother tutting and pulling out the frozen bag of peas that had resided in the back of the freezer, yes, behind the carrots, for the past seventeen years. It had been purchased only with the intent of being the unappetizing side to dinner one night, but quickly substituted as the ice pack of choice after Jessica learned to ride the obnoxiously pink Barbie bike Aunt Mona bought her the summer she turned six - a staple, if not _the_ , staple of her childhood, really.

Despite the plethora of goodies Aunt Mona always brought back from her trips to Spain, and the peals of laughter and the twinkle of something irrevocably new, it had been a summer of hard lessons for everyone. Jess had found out rather quickly that there was a certain kind of power and unruly independence in being bruised and wild and still – _still_ – trying again. Their parents had learned that despite the courage being six always brought, children were still fragile things, and Gillian found out there were some places even Jess wasn't going to let her follow.

Needless to say, Gillian was stressed out, and not your typical college exam _I only studied for three minutes stressed out_ , but the gut wrenching topsy turvy feeling of a crashing plane or a derailing locomotive. She was stressed out in a dangerous, devastating type of way. And for good reason, she was only a staggering three miles away from her hometown.

Forks, Washington.

And it's all Jessica's fault. Well, not technically. Angela Martin - her sisters' best friend since grade school - and Ben Cheney - the gangly boy only known for stealing his friends free popcorn at the movie theaters and surprising everyone by getting hunky that one summer - we're getting married. But they would never have even started dating if Jessica hadn't locked them in a coat closet in eighth grade, so, Gillian supposed it made perfect sense to blame this whole train-wreck of a vacation –

 _"and it is a vacation Gilly! Besides, when's the last time you visited mom and dad, they raised you for eighteen years, yah know, the least you could do is come home every once in a while, and tell mom her fake meat and three cheese casserole tastes good"_ \- on Jessica .

But either way, Gillian figured most of, if not all of the awful things that happened in the world could very well be traced back to a certain Jessica Stanley. And Gillian figured she had every reason to not want to come home; despite Jess's teasing, it truly had nothing to do with the non-existent relationship she had with her parents.

Strange things happened in Forks, Washington. And it wasn't large black hippie vans, or old men that grab and touch and take. It was the howl in the woods that shocked the trees and the ground and screamed animal yet somehow trembled human. It was the way impossible things happened to impossible people. And eerily beautiful rich kids spoke with an elegance that could have only been described as _timeless_. It was the woods that stirred and went bump in the night. It was the five dead bodies they found two weeks apart and the beast that always got away.

Most of all, it was the fact that nobody believed her, not even Jess. Now every time Gillian even thought about coming home a large twisty kind of darkness clung to her clothes and made her see stars, and then she'd have no choice but to squeeze her eyes shut so tightly none of the tears could escape, they'd have to stay _in, in, in._ And then she'd pop a pill – it's for anxiety, _relax_ \- and write positive affirmations on a stack of sticky notes only to let them rot on the floor.

Gillian swore she would never come back to Forks, if the creepy animal noises and the god damn wind – _it's a living thing_ , Gillian had sworn to her sister a few years ago, _a living breathing thing and it's terrifying_ \- wasn't enough to keep her away, then the old aristocratic families that had lived in that small trash can town for seemingly centuries, did the job quite thoroughly.

She never understood how they could smile at you, bare their pearly white fucking dentures and ask after your parents only to turn around and conspiratorially whisper of whatever scandal or disgrace weaseled it's way into the newspaper – okay, so it rarely made the headlines but everyone knew Leana Pruett had been running the Forks gossip column for twelve years straight, she didn't have any kids or a nice word to say about anyone but Gillian had to hand it to her, she sure knew how to sell a story.

The people inhabiting Forks permanently couldn't do much, but they could talk and breathe silly standards, and archaic ideals like it was their only _good_ personality trait. Gillian had seen lives ruined over their incessant twittering. But who did they whisper about most? Gillian, the fallen Stanley sister –

_Poor girl had to be propped up and strapped onto the straight and narrow that one._

_These things just happen sometimes, nothing her dear family could have done, but mind you I always said there was just something so odd about that little girl_

_I know, I know, smiled too wide._

_Oh, and just the way she'd whisper and carry on to herself –_

And her family wasn't so different, _not really_ , from any of the other socialites inhabiting Forks. The Stanley's had a reputation to maintain and Gillian figured she was very well doing everyone a favor by staying far away.

None the less, Angela Martin had faithfully braided her hair for every middle school dance she was naive enough to care about and had even passed down her old camera when Gillian had expressed the vaguest inclination to photography. Angela was her sister in every way that counted – in all of the unspeakable heart fluttering ways it didn't.

The least Gillian could do was come home and watch the girl say I do.

So, with her nerves perfectly frayed and her heart rattling around in her chest like a caged bird, Gillian Stanley entered Forks, Washington for the first time in five years.

And she only cried a little.

\--

"Oh, baby! Your hair is so long," Sarah Stanley trembled out as she air kissed her daughters cheeks with a haughtiness only she could have pulled off while crying, "I don't remember it being that long, Phil."

For his part Phil Stanley bobbed his head along dutifully, as he tearfully took in his youngest daughter's appearance. He had a firm smile and unintentionally furrowed eyebrows that only made sense on a politician, a stern looking man, then. Yet, he had a gummy heart. A _good_ heart. Soft and maliable and well, he honest to god figured he'd never see his youngest daughter within a two-mile radius of this town ever again, so, was it really so silly that he had been feeling a little misty eyed?

Jessica leaned against the pristine white door frame, arms crossed, and eyes rolled firmly up at her mother's incessant fawning. Her homecoming hadn't been quite so tragic, but then again Jess had been home last weekend, and the weekend before that.

Truth be told, she missed the younger girl, and as god was her witness Bella Swan could swoop in with her silky hair and hold a knife to her throat in a semi-erotic way and Jessica Stanley would still never admit that to her sister.

"Jess," Gillian nodded tersely when she finally looked _up, up, and up_ at her sandal clad, jean short and saltwater haired sister, a flicker of annoyance flashed in the older girls' eyes which only made Gill swallow nervously. It had been years since they'd seen each other, once they had been close, once they would have flown into each other's arms and Jess would have tugged at Gill's hair and it would have been sweet and beautiful and their mother would have cried, but she'd been away for _so_ long.

Yet, nothing between them would ever be final, _right?_ – not the door that rattled the whole house when it slammed or the slurred _I-hate-you's_ that shouldn't have really hurt but _burned_ , and _burned_ anyways.

No, nothing was ever permanent. Not even this weird mangled moment nobody knew what to do with, not even Sarah Stanley who always had a word or two even when there was nothing left to say.

"Gill," Jessica responded in that same tight breathless way, "you haven't grown. Not even an inch."

All Gillian could think to say was, "Okay."

She often felt like her whole family was trapped on weirdly small deserted island's and because fate is – _cruel_ – they're all facing each other but no one knows how to swim or speak because the salt doesn't just live in the water but the air and sand too. And all the words that shake and tremble and beat their way out are whispered, fragile things that don't have ends or beginnings really, just a pause and a sharp inhale and a hanging question mark –

 _Look what we've done to each other_.

"God, who died?" Jessica sniffed bitterly, her fingers pressed into her bare forearms – it was May and only seventy degrees but you could've asked anyone, they would have said _it felt like summer_ – Gillian watched mesmerized as her spidery fingers turned the skin white. An ugly, milky, bone white. "You know what a hug is?" There's a lift to Jess's voice, an accent, she paused for a moment and tried to decide whether or not that was new.

"'Course," Gillian wrapped her arms around her sister, the accent _was_ new, it had to be new, the hug was only slightly weird. Despite the turmoil trembling through her fingers she found comfort in Jess's distinct smell –

It was lavender, and tea leaves, and that one smell that was really popular in 2009 when Bath and Body Works released their spring collection – _spring_ – Jess smelt like spring.

"Oh, look at our girls!" Sarah cooed and moved to her husband's side where she fit perfectly. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder and he stroked the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb and all was sweet and lovely in the world and they could forget that there had ever been tears or ugly nasty words that swelled, _even now_ , between the four of them like lingering bruises. "I just can't believe we're all together again, I am so glad we can finally put that dreaded hospital behind us" –

Gillian immediately felt numb all over, she didn't need to hear the rest of her mother's sentence, her hands fell limply at her sides, useless, unreliable things. Jess recoiled to shoot a withering glare at her tactless mother. "Mom!" She cried, and for her part looked truly disturbed that she'd brought it up so soon into Gill's visit.

Jess figured it was inevitable, it was their mother after all. _And quite frankly_ , Jess thought bitterly, scathingly, _people don't just change, not even when they really, really should_. But, couldn't she have waited until after dinner? That kind of rationality had never come easy to Sarah Stanley, and, well, god could only extend so many miracles to one family.

For his part Phil Stanley had pressed his lips into a firm line and furrowed those politician eyebrows down, down, down. "What? What!?" Sarah asked frantically as her husband led her into the house, "I don't understand!" As he pushed her farther away and deeper into their home only their heated muffled voices could be heard from the porch – _Oi, you spoil everything woman. Philip Stanley you take that right back, or I swear you'll be sleeping on the couch! If my mother was alive –_

Jess led Gillian over to the ottoman set that had sat on their porch come rain or snow for the past five years, looking only slightly weathered, the diagonal stripes were still mostly blue and you couldn't even really see the stain half a wine cooler and Gillian's upset stomach had left behind. _A parting gift,_ Jess thought sardonically.

Gill pulled and scratched at the firm fabric – it wasn't a panic attack, panic attacks were breathless noisy hiccups that felt like death, okay, so, maybe this felt like death, but Gillian didn't have panic attacks anymore – Jess rubbed circles into her sisters back like she used to do when they were kids and it would have been wonderful if only they were still little and loved each other in that whirl-wind forever kind of way. "Mom was wrong, she shouldn't have even mentioned it."

"Yes," Gillian agreed with a flippancy at odds with the turmoil raging and coiling and destroying her stomach with its familiar song of; _I shouldn't have come here, but I did, and now I am stuck, stuck, stuck_. She schooled her features into an impenetrable mask of nothingness. She would not lose her composure. She would show Jess, and her mother, and the entire fucking town of Forks, Washington that she had grown, that she had learned to be calm and rational even when her bones protested and screeched and begged.

She was not stuck _anywhere_ – so she would be calm.

"I think we should go bowling." Gillian offered conversely and Jess paused her ministrations to look at her sister – with those brown beady eyes that were so good at coaxing information, so good at seeing, and deciding – For what felt like the first time in years – and it dawned on Jess, this _was_ the first time. Because Facebook pictures weren't for real, they didn't mean anything, and everyone _knew_ that.

The girl's face was perfectly smooth, a cacophony of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and her hair fell in long red-brown tresses that tangled at the ends. _She looked like she'd always looked_ , Jess decided, _just different now._

Different in the way her spine didn't curve or slouch, in the way her leg didn't jiggle nervously in anticipation, in the way her nails were long and styled and not raw brittle nubs. She has endured and she has suffered, and she is all the better for it.

"You want to go bowling?" Jess asked finally. Gillian nodded – slightly – and if Jess hadn't been looking for it, if she hadn't been scrutinizing her sisters face she would have missed it. "Let's go bowling."


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine. I update, and then keep updating, and then eventually finish a story. what a lovely dream.
> 
> p.s. this really was supposed to be a comedy, god damn.

The Forks Bowling Alley smelt like _shit_. Like three times fried egg rolls that come already made; the ones that are wrapped inside a piece of plastic and sealed inside a cardboard box, the ones you don't have to open to just know that they're bad _, bad_. And it's fine, mostly, because, like, they know what they _are_ – they aren't ever trying to be something they're not –

 _Still_ , the bowling alley smelt gross.

But Paul wasn't a rich kid, in fact he didn't know any rich folks that shared the same bronze colored skin as him – not in Forks anyways – he knew lazy grandsons that refused to leave their rooms, and having to make a car from the scrap metal nobody wanted, he knew about rust, and dents, and digging through the _trash_. He knew about searching wastelands and always coming up empty – he knew about _empty_.

Paul worked a grueling nine to five at his construction job just to come to this shit hole – _sorry_ – establishment on the weekends. The kids were rude and never wore socks; which just made the whole place fucking stink worse than it already did and they didn't, they didn't _care_ about the things they left behind, they didn't think about the angry man that was always, _always_ picking through somebody else's leftovers.

"A seven and a nine please," a soft if distant voice stirred Paul from his begrudging _musings._ Without even looking he plopped the requested shoes on the counter and in one fell swoop plucked the wadded-up cash from off the counter.

"Dollar fifties your change," He grunts brusquely and drops the cash into the open waiting palm. He doesn't take his eyes off the register; he's already moving onto the next task, because there _is_ always something to do – somethings broken somewhere, probably the arcade, it's always the arcade.

"Thank you," that same small far away voice pipes up again, she hesitates for a moment before adding a hasty, " _Paul."_

He looks up then, because nobody says his name like that, or nobody he's ever met has said his name like that and he's, well, he's _curious._ Paul is not prepared for what he sees – her face is still scrunched up from trying to read the name tag angled away from her. She's got freckles – and like yeah, he's definitely seen freckles before, but none like this – none that bloom.

"You're welcome." Another grunt.

And she's gone, walking away from him and he's sworn he's seen this one before –

 _The girl always leaves, doesn't she?_ He thinks idly, _helplessly_ , fidgeting with that stupid name tag, _does she ever get to stay?_

He had to shake his head to remind himself that she wasn't – she wasn't Rachel. _Hell_ , he didn't even know that woman. There was really no reason to get so philosophical – not when he was this fucking sober at least. That was probably the wolf in him – the _pet_. The ugly beast that somehow always managed to find comfort in the girls that didn't _want_ him; not the messy, impossible parts of him anyways.

He tells himself he's not going to watch her, he's not going to stare like a fucking creep, but he is hyper aware of her presence – the dog again, then – the way she had smelt, in fact he could still smell her in the empty space she had occupied, if only for a few seconds. It was dandelions and laundry detergent. Not the stuff he always bought on clearance, but the kind Emily had, the large purple bottles that smelt like parents that hug their children just because they want to and friends that are just your friends and –

_And girl's that stay._

He practically growls, because he has spent the past three years pushing it away, forcing it _down, down, down_ and it's not fair that some random girl gets to make him dizzy with her smell and remind of him of everything he had once. All the things he'd lost.

He hastily sprayed the can of Febreze – stored strategically beneath the register for when the aromas got particularly finnicky – her scent fades and is replaced with the strangely sweet bottled aroma of the sea and he doesn't know – _not really_ – if it actually smells like that anymore, because he hadn't been to the beach in a really, really long time.

It felt weird, Paul decided, to forget something you never thought you would, something you had memorized and felt so fiercely and breathed all the way inside of you for twenty years. It's just as well, he shrugs, there is no use dwelling on the things you can't change; or what you don't really want to change – because forgetting that part of him, leaving it behind, _that_ had been a choice.

A teeth gritting, spine crushing, finger numbing choice – but it had been _his._

The fake ocean smell dispersed leaving him with a clear head, and a plethora of things to do. He squeezed into the small office branded _employee's only_ and yanked open the neon green – well neon for a metal filing cabinet, point is, it was fucking ugly – bottom drawer and snatched up the fraying utility belt used for fixing whatever cheap ass contraption needed it.

Paul hiked the belt up and over his waist, he's just about to click it in place but something _stops_ him; the feeling of being watched washed over him like the sickly sweet mist he'd sprayed earlier had, in the same way it had clung to his skin and stayed _there_. It's an instinct more than it is anything else – the _damn_ wolf –

– When he turns around to see who could be looking at him; big scary Paul Lahote – the sad sack nobody _wanted_ to look in the eyes anymore, he's surprised to see those _blooming_ freckles. Paul swallowed the lump in his throat and sends a sneer rivaling a rabid animal in her general direction, because it only makes sense; because that's what he is, isn't it? An _animal_.

Paul Lahote was not fucking soft and he didn't like being stared at – not by red haired girls that could break his heart if he didn't – if he wasn't careful; if he had one –

When their eyes meet and she's realized she's been caught, she, she yelps – _actually yelps_ – and well, it stirs something in him, in the wolf, mostly. But she doesn't look away, she just watches him curiously, her sister or friend or whoever the fuck taps her on the shoulder when it's her turn and she bowls – she's awful, seven gutter balls – but then she just keeps on staring.

He sends her another glare and she _smiles_.

God help him it's going to be a long fucking night.

\--

Gillian Stanley was not, has never been, and will never be _boy_ crazy, despite the narrative Jess was trying to peddle.

"Okay, but you didn't take your eyes off him like, _once –_ "

"I did too!" Gillian snapped in that embarrassed flustered kind of way.

"Look," Jessica said pointedly before taking a sip of the fruit smoothie she purchased on the way home from the alley, "I know you're a liar, you know you're a liar. There's really no point in denying it."

"I will kill you, and it will be bloody, and painful if you do not shut up!" Gillian exclaimed, but it wasn't scary or intimidating because halfway through her threat Gill's resolve crumbled away and burying your head in your hands is decidedly _not_ threatening.

"Yeah, and then our poor mother is going to ask why you murdered her precious angel baby and you'll have to tell her it's because you were ogling _Paul Lahote_ –"

"I wasn't ogling –"

" – She'd have a heart attack on the spot!"

"Jessica Stanley, if you have ever loved me – even a _little bit_ – you would kindly stop talking and never open your mouth again." Gillian squirmed restlessly against the too tight seatbelt strapping her safely into Jess's 2009 Honda Accord.

"Jeez, you need to relax, I'm not like, going to tell mom or anything," Jess shrugged innocuously, "besides you're like an adult now or whatever. Ogle away."

"I wasn't –" but the words die on Gillian's tongue, because she was _ogling_ , wasn't she?

A beat. _Silence._

Before Gillian can talk herself out of it, she turns her entire body to face her sister, "Why would mom die? Because she's mom or – "

Gillian trails off again, just like before she doesn't have the words – they coil in her mind tightly like springs and when she needs them, really needs them they just _disappear._ She feels herself flush and she wants to duck her head again. But she doesn't, because she was a twenty-three-year-old woman, because this was Jessica and they had just went bowling, because you should be able to talk about the things you want to talk about with the people you trust –

– you shouldn't be scared, but, _stars_ , she was.

"Oh," Jessica paused, scrunched up her nose in confusion, "uhm, you mean like why mom would die if she found out you were crushing on Paul Lahote?"

"It's not – ugh, fine, yeah, whatever."

"He was part of that strange cult that got beefy in high school, pretty sure they just lifted and took steroids in the woods, but it was weird anways and well, you know mom, she doesn't like –

"Weird," Gillian finished for her sister.

"Yeah." Jess nodded along silently.

So that's it then, that's why she couldn't stop staring, because she had seen herself in him, in those dark hooded eyes and that awful, ugly, angry mask. Was he stuck then? Like Gillian had been all those years ago, or –

 _No, some people are just angry,_ hadn't Gillian been the one to tell her sister that before she'd abruptly left home, _they don't have a reason sometimes, or maybe they have a really good reason, but there's no fixing a fire like that._

"Hey," Jess tutted at the forlorn look on Gillian's face, she fixed those dark brown eyes on her sister and smiled, " _hey_ , don't get lost on me Gill, you're twenty-three, what mom doesn't know won't hurt her."

"Yeah," Gillian nodded, and flashed her sister _that_ smile – the one that says I'm okay even though it might not seem like it, I am trying to be better, and good, and normal, "you're right."

Jessica studied her sister for a moment, her lips parted like she was going to say something important but some part of her must have decided against it. She shook her head and painted on a mischievous smile, "I'll show you how to sneak out tonight and you can go visit _him_."

"Oh my god," Gillian gaped before jostling her sister with an uncertain strength a lingering question hung in the air – _is this okay? Can we pretend I didn't leave and that we still talk all the time and that we aren't strangers?_ "remind me to never do anything with you ever again."

"You love me," Jess teased, her smile and the flick she retaliates with is all the answer Gillian needs –

_Yes, we can love each other like this; in our own quiet unassuming way._

\--

"Gillian Stanley," Sarah barked out admonishingly, while wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself – despite the fury in the woman's voice the move struck Gillian as odd, as something flimsy and delicate – "you can't just leave and not tell anyone where you've gone, I am not so young that my heart can take this kind of thing in stride!"

 _Nonsense mother, you're as young as a bird._ Gillian wants to say, and _bird's don't ever get older; they are forever, like the horizon and the wind and the clouds._

The two Stanley sisters were stood in the foyer of their childhood home, heads lowered in shame – or at least Gillian's was, Jessica was too bold and unapologetic to feel anything resembling shame – being berated by their furious _frail_ mother. An oxymoron if there ever was one.

Gillian focused on the pristine white marble beneath her feet just as she had done when they were kids, counting the lines and the squares – twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty four –

"What do you have to say for yourself then, hm?"

_Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven_

"Gillian!"

_Twenty-eight, twenty-nine –_

Jessica nudges her and Gillian's gaze snapped to her angry mother.

 _Oh,_ right.

"Jessica knew –" Gillian started but as she thinks of the tremble in her mother's fingers when she'd pried opened the door the words die on her lips, "I didn't mean to scare you."

Her mother only nods, seeming to accept this.

"And you," Sarah turns her indignant, appraising eyes on her oldest daughter, "do you know what I felt when I came to the porch and found my babies gone? Gone! What was I to think Jessica Stanley?"

"That we're capable adults that can take care of ourselves?" Jessica deadpanned, always her mother's harder child, "I am nearly thirty, if I can't come and go as I please by all means, _say so._ "

"Why! I never," Sarah stuttered, "Phillip Stanley, it seems we have raised spoiled rotten children."

"Yes, dear," Philip's agreement rings through the living room loudly enough albeit slightly distracted as he scratched something onto a cross word in his large red leather psychologists chair, "spoiled rotten!"

"Dad!" Jessica exclaimed equal parts indignant and bewildered. Gillian doesn't even have to look at her to know her hips cocked and her head is tilted and her face is scrunched up in disbelief – it's amazing how you can still know the quiet ordinary things about people you haven't seen in years.

"I'm sorry, mom," Gillian confessed, because there was very well no use fighting a hurricane, it comes, and it wreaks its havoc and then it trembles away – wasn't this the same thing? "we got sushi though."

Sarah trains her wide beady eyes on her young, soft, delicate daughter. "Okay," She breathes like that's all she wanted – needed to hear; _I'm sorry_. She fluffs the bottom of her short bob, but it barely moves, courtesy of magic concrete hair spray, already moving on and letting whatever tangible fury she had go, "we can watch Jessica's ballet recital in the den."

It's an apology as much as anything else is, Gillian decides, and she thinks she can read the message in her mother's piercing gaze – _I'm sorry about earlier, I have never had a daughter like you, I've never had to be careful with my words before._

"Okay," Gillian agrees quietly, painting on a soft smile; its lips quirked up, only _slightly_ , and for all she's grown and changed it's an apology too.

"Oh my god," Jess protested, "no, no, _no_."

"Phillip," Sarah calls to her husband, promptly ignoring her eldest daughter.

"I'll find the VHS." He confirms and something strikes Gillian then. He set his crossword puzzle aside and delicately removed the obviously newly acquired reading glasses, smoothing his sweater vest down, down, down.

Gillian wanted a love like that – the kind that was more habit than anything else, the kind that was patient and lasting and capable of enduring summers that felt more like winters.

\--

"I can't believe mom yelled at us like that," Jess whispered later that night when the two girls were safely tucked away in one of the fancy guest bedrooms, "it's like she thinks were twelve or something."

"Yeah," Gillian agreed, the irony of wearing onesies and cuddling in bed like they _were_ twelve was not lost on her. She stared up at the ceiling remembering the time she had tried to convince her mother to put up those little plastic neon stars –

"Remember that story I used to tell you when we were kids? The one about the wolf?" Jess asked suddenly.

A beat, "Yeah," Gillian nodded without tearing her eyes away from the ceiling, of course she'd remembered. "The wolf was eating or whatever and a bone got stuck in his throat, he was suffocating, dying –

Jessica nodded, "He told the crane he'd give anything – _everything_ – to be saved,"

"So, the crane saved him," Gillian replied, "but when he asked for his reward the wolf told him he'd stuck his head in the mouth of a wolf and taken it out again in safety, he said that was reward enough,"

"Yeah," Jessica agreed. _Silence._

"Why do you bring it up?" _A beat_.

Jess grimaced, "You mentioned it, before you left for good, you said you'd seen the teeth of the wolf and that they were red, red, red, and – and you said he was going to swallow you whole."

"I didn't say that," Gillian shook her head dismissively, she would have remembered saying something ridiculous like that, surely –

"You did, _Gill_ ," Jessica insisted, and Gillian suddenly wasn't so sure, "you told me – you said, _I am no crane,_ and it, it scared the hell out of me."

"Okay," Gillian nodded, because if Jessica told her she'd said it then it had to be true. A dark ugly grey chord inside of her was struck so hard her ribcage rattled and the sound reverberated so violently the end of her toes and fingers went numb.

"Do you think that story is why you – your – " Bold, brave Jessica trails off like she doesn't want to finish her sentence, and this particularly strikes Gillian as odd. But of course she knows where she's going with this.

"I'm what?" Gillian snapped, the words tumbling sharply from her chest, already defensive, ready to tell her that she was better now, thank you –

"Don't get testy," Jessica retorted, but because she really wasn't trying to fight with her sister she schooled her frustrated features into something soft, "I'm just wondering if – if I did it to you, if I'm, if that's why you left –"

"I left because this town was making me crazy," Gillian forced the words out, surprised at the sheer honesty; she hadn't planned on ever talking about this again let alone with Jessica but she couldn't very well let the older girl think she was the reason she'd left, "because I was saying scary things to anyone who would listen to me and I was seeing things, things normal people didn't see, and I really wanted to be normal."

"Okay." Jessica said softly, and relief, gratitude washed over Gillian because it felt like finally, _finally_ being believed –

A beat.

"Jess?" Gillian whispered, grateful for how easy it was to say hard things in the dark, and the fact that she'd failed in getting her mother to agree to the stars –

"Yeah?" Jessica hummed quietly.

Gillian blinks once, twice, before rolling over to face her sister, "I wanted you to come with, you could have and –" She stops, suddenly, shockingly, she swallows down a crater sized lump but her voice is gone and the words, well, they always seemed to die on the tip of her tongue, didn't they?

Jessica turns to face her sister and their foreheads brush together, the older girl takes her trembling sister's fingers into her hands, _we can love each other like this, loudly, boldly_ , "And?"

"I wouldn't have said no."


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have specified this at the beginning of the story lol, but this is an au. Jessica Stanley is probably out of character as heck, and because I suck at writing, Paul probably will be as well. Anywho, imprinting works a lil differently in this universe, it's something I definitely plan on explaining in the future. But it's like a slow working kinda thing, a bond all the same but just a tad different. Idk im not very eloquent. 

three

Paul Lahote was going to ring Embry Call's skinny little neck, he hadn't been to the library in years, _hell_ , he couldn't remember the last book he'd read just to read. But because he was endlessly generous and a truly _giving_ friend he'd traipsed on over to the library for the busier boy –

No, that wasn't quite right. He'd lost a bet, a stupid bet. Paul should have won, _would_ have won. But he'd been distracted by those blooming freckles. In fact, they hadn't left his mind once in the past four days and he absolutely refused to think about why; he wouldn't give this strange little fantasy the time of day. And that's what it was, all it was, all she was; a _fantasy_. If only she would stay in his head and out of his chest – not his heart, it wasn't like that.

The library was a small little building, it hadn't changed once in 70 years – or so he'd been told – and he could appreciate that. The intense sameness of it all. What must it feel like to be stood stock still as everything around you changed? A dark brittle part of him retaliated, you don't need to wonder, because you know _exactly_ what it feels like –

He clutches the wooden mahogany shelves like he might fall otherwise, which is just – he's _isn't_ , he's standing upright, his feet are on the floor, and it's solid, it's concrete. He's not going anywhere. But his heart drops to the pit of his wasteland stomach and it's overwhelming all the same –

"Oh hey!" He smells her before he hears her – that's the wolf, then – mixed in with the old books and the lemon glass cleaner is that purple lavender smell that sends him reeling, "You work at the bowling alley, right?"

He spares a glance to his left, eyes glued firmly to the top of her forehead because there aren't so many freckles there that he has to compulsively count or memorize the sprouting flowers and enthralling constellations that move across her skin, on her forehead their just freckles not –

"Mhm," He hears himself grunt and his voice sounds distant and far away, even to him. So, he tries again, because Paul Lahote is not fucking soft, "yeah, on the weekends,"

"I didn't know you liked to read," She points to the stack of books gathered in his right hand. _You don't know a lot of things about me_ , he wants to say. He doesn't.

"I _don't_ ," He bites out, and his grip on the antique bookshelf tightens, if he looked down, he'd see that the tips of his fingers were being enveloped by the telltale pressure of too much. The wood cracks, he can feel it. He doesn't have to look to know, because the ends of his fingers go numb, and that's telling enough.

"Oh, I just assumed, since we're at a library and you've got three – four books," Gillian whispers, her voice is so fucking soft, he wants to know why, because surely – _surely,_ she's not just like this.

Paul nods slowly releasing his grip on the shelf, surprisingly the floor doesn't give way beneath him, but he turns to look at her – really look – and it might as well have. Because he's floored, not just by those blooming freckles, but those piercing eyes. They're brown. Rachel had brown eyes. He coughs, "for a friend,"

Her brows furrow and her eyes narrow before she finally settles on, "your friend has excellent taste,"

Paul laughs at that, _it's not_ , it's not because he thinks she's funny, it's because he's feeling utterly delirious. He can't stop thinking about this stranger the same way he couldn't stop thinking about Rachel, and he doesn't want to know what that means, he's not even a little bit curious, " _right_ ,"

"So," she starts again, and he wants to tell her to leave him alone, he wants to glare at her until she gets the fuck out of his way, he wants to punch Embry Call in the face, he wants –

"What do you do?"

He doesn't think he's hearing her right, his heart is beating incredibly fucking loud, "What?"

"I mean, like, when you aren't working at the alley? What do you do?" She tries again and those wide dark eyes meet his. _What are you doing?_ Paul wants to ask, because only dumb asses make small talk with him, and well, she didn't look like a dumbass. _Why are you talking to me? Don't you know how this ends? I am the wolf, and I am not friendly, I will not be gentle –_

"Nothing," he grunt's and he's aware; spine tingling aware of all of his shortcomings. He's not particularly eloquent, it's a bone deep recognition, the kind that settles in the marrow. Paul didn't go to college, but he's not fucking stupid, he knows her parents would blanche at the sight of him, he knows this the same way he knows where conversations like this always go. They go absolutely _nowhere,_ and there's no point trying to pretend otherwise. "nothing important anyways,"

"Oh? Pardon my saying so," _Who the fuck even talked like that?_ Paul wondered, "but, I don't really believe that."

She cocks her head to the side and her brows lift ever so slightly, challengingly, and it pisses him off, because he's so sick of everyone telling him who he is and who he isn't. She didn't fucking now a thing about him, how many smiles and spirits was he going to have to break before they figured it out?

He rears on her then, stalking towards her slowly, large shoulders hunched up, big ugly face screwed into a scowl – that's the wolf, but it's also the man too. She trips backwards into the wall and he places each hand on either side of her head. But she could leave if she wanted – he wouldn't, he _wouldn't_ trap her.

"And why is that?" He growls. He doesn't even try to keep the animal out of it, wide devastating doe eyes stare up at him, he can't help the thought that filters into his mind, _she looks like prey_ , _god_ , that stirred something strange in him, "you don't even know who I am."

She swallowed hard, his eyes flick to her exposed neck and then up to her swollen trembling lips, he looked away then because he wanted to kiss her, it was an overwhelming feeling that crashed over him in waves so violent he felt seasick. Paul Lahote was an awful fucking person, but he'd never force himself on someone who clearly didn't want him.

He channels his mixed-up feelings into an achingly familiar blistering vengeful heat. _Good_ , he knows angry, he can work with angry, "I know _what_ I am." He spat, "and I know who I'll be tomorrow, I don't need some kid trying to make me seem like a fucking martyr."

She holds his gaze with an intensity that scared him, "I-I'm twenty-three."

" _What?_ "

"You called me a kid, I'm not." Her voice is shaky at first, she hesitates for a moment, and steels herself with a resolve he might have admired if the circumstances were different. "I'm twenty-three."

He laughs in her face, it's an ugly cruel bark of a laugh. It's not charming, it's not becoming. It's a laugh that reminded him of splintered rotting wood, "Whatever."

"You're not very nice, are you?" She bites out and it's _thrilling_ , watching the heat in her eyes, the accusation in her words. He's not so lost in her though that he can't recognize how wrong it is to want to be burned.

"I don't have a fucking obligation to be nice to anyone in this shit town, I won't preen and smile and jump through god damn hoops just because your daddy has money," He doesn't know why he says that last bit, she didn't even seem like that kind of girl; the one that would flaunt her families wealth. But he's a dumbass and words just come out of him sometimes, they boil over, scalding hot and agonizing. But that's the thing, he didn't – he didn't _want_ to hurt her. Not the way he thought he did. He wants to take it back, this whole fucking exchange, but hadn't he felt this way before?

With _Rachel_.

Hadn't he been sorry? Hadn't he begged her to stay? Hadn't she left anyways?

Hadn't it ended in ruin –

It had, and some people, well, some people just can't be ruined twice.

"I-What are you talking about?" Gillian says coldly, her wide-open face shutting down, smoothed into an icy mask and it's a crying shame because she was so beautiful moments ago, when her lips had been parted, and he hadn't said a fucking word. Despite her resolve he could still hear the slight waver in her voice, " _Oh_ , of course. I understand better now, you're a hypocrite."

"I'm not –"

"Now," She held his gaze, and something in it makes him freeze whatever half-hearted protest he had dies on his tongue, "if you'll please excuse me."

But he doesn't move, he just continues staring at her, scrutinizing those delicate features, memorizing them because this is the last time he'll see her, he knows this like he knows everything else and it – it makes him somber.

Gillian swallows hard, heat rises to her face, not because she's embarrassed, I mean, yeah, she's really embarrassed, but it's because she'd never felt so looked at before. He was cracking her open then, like she was a book and reading all the parts of her – it was _mesmerizing_ , it was, it was _terrifying_ –

"I said excuse me!" She bellows and sends a deft elbow directly into his ribs, she wants it to _hurt,_ but he barely even winces and that makes it so much worse. She ducked past him with a fiery hatred in her heart and her head held high.

Paul is left staring at the empty space she'd once occupied, he can't watch her walk away, it's too familiar – _and so the girl always leaves then, she never gets to stay._

He thinks of Rachel. Because hadn't it happened just like this?

No, because he had done everything right last time. He'd tried to be good and gentle and –

– _she had still left_.

People left, even when you didn't want them to, even when you were _so_ sure that you had that eclipsing kind of love, the forever kind; the one that was carved into hundred year old trees that had endured, and endured, and just – _continued_ to endure. A love that sat in the sky and dripped, _soaked_ into the mud and the earth and found its way into the roots of all the old things –

They still leave. Even when you think you've finally, _finally_ been rooted.

 _Good_ , he thinks, even though he feels split all the way open _, it's good_. A reminder. If he gets hurt now, it'll be his own fucking fault.

\--

Jessica isn't surprised exactly when her younger sister shows up to Angela's dress fitting late, and she's not surprised when she plops heavily into the cushioned seat next to her with a billion different creases in between her brows. Jess very well figured it was to be expected, what with the awful circumstances in which Gillian left Forks all those years ago.

But she definitely wasn't expecting her small, meek, usually doe-eyed little sister to conjure up a blistering anger that distorted her usually relaxed features into something new and unsettling, it was like looking at a stranger. When Gillian finally spoke, it was with a heat and acidity that took Jessica's breath away, "What can you tell me about Paul Lahote?"

"Well, hello to you to Gillian." Jessica deadpanned and went back to scrolling through her phone; if only because she didn't want to have to look into her sister's icy eyes any longer.

"Answer the question." Gillian demanded, and this alone caused Jessica to abandon her idle fidgeting. She shot her sister a disdainful scowl. Jessica Stanley was not one to be demanded or coerced into telling anyone anything. She was like her father in that way.

"Oh, I'm fine, yeah, thanks for asking." Jessica sassed, and all Gill could do was roll her eyes in sheer annoyance.

"Jess!" She breathed exasperatedly and gathered her older sisters' fingers into her hands, she shot her an imploring look. Jessica felt truly unnerved at the desperation in her sister's voice. She had teased Gillian mercilessly about the older man earlier in the week, but she had been _kidding_ then.

"Fine," Jessica sighed, she still didn't particularly want to tell her sister, but she wasn't so cruel that she'd reduce the younger girl to begging, "But, I don't really know much about him."

Gillian shook her head, and offered a tentative smile, "You know more than me, I am sure."

To Jessica's relief, and Gillian's annoyance Angela popped out of the fitting room decked all in white. A bride if there ever was one. She wore a small thin smile, but years of friendship brought a certain kind of understanding with it, and Jessica could tell the girl was elated.

"Alright guys, what do you think?" She smoothed her hands down the sides of her gown self-consciously, the attendant dazed off in the distance.

"Oh my god," Jessica cried, "Angela, your boobs!"

"Jess!" Angela shrieked scandalized, and good naturedly covered her bosom. She peeked through her peripherals to gauge the attendant's reaction, but the older woman was still smiling distractedly in the distance.

"What?" Jessica teased. "you look hot, and you know Cheney is going to lose it," Jess insinuated wiggling her eyebrows.

"Brother's going to have like an instant nosebleed," Jessica joked and pantomimed a formidable bloody nose. For her part Angela smiled diligently at her best friend's crude humor.

"You're a menace," Angela breathed softly, "what do you think Gill?"

Gillian looked up at her sister's beautiful best friend, Angela deserved her complete attention, it was bad enough that she had been late. She could plot a certain Paul Lahote's demise later. This moment would only ever happen once.

"It's going to be a blood bath." Gillian said solemnly and Angela dramatically rolled her eyes. Jessica cackled manically and shot her sister an appreciative glance.

"This is why we can't have nice things," The bride to be chuckled – a delicate tinkling sort of laugh that resonated throughout the small viewing room. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and while not a particularly graceful task, the young woman looked enchanting.

"You look lovely," Gillian amended, "Like a beautiful fairy princess."

Angela smiled at that.

"Thank you, that's what everyone wants to hear about their wedding gown. I am going to change before I inexplicably decide I hate it," She vanished back into the dressing room with the distracted attendant hot on her heels.

"He was going to get married," Jessica said softly, Gillian turned to her confused, "Paul, I mean. Everyone said so."

"To who?" Gillian swallowed the lump in her throat, obviously Paul wasn't married now, but for some reason the very thought of him even being engaged made her nauseous. She didn't even want to think about what _that_ meant.

"Her name was Rachel Black," Gillian felt something cold and black stir deep in her belly, something she'd never felt before. Jess continued, "she came back to Forks for her mother's funeral, and even though she was all sad she was also like, I don't know, beautiful and exotic."

Gillian did _not_ want to hear that, not when she was boring and plain. Not when the entire town of Forks thought she was strange and unusual. Not when Jessica shared the same parents as her but got all the good DNA.

"No one cared about her of course," Jessica rolled her eyes ruefully, "until she was supposed to leave, mainly because she just, didn't."

Gillian nodded along dutifully. Although she really didn't want to hear anymore she couldn't help herself, she opened her big fat mouth, and – "because of Paul?"

"Yeah, I'm guessing. Then people started seeing them around town and everyone said that they were good for each other, happy as newlyweds and all that."

_Oh._

"But she left. I don't think anyone ever found out why, there was a lot of speculations though."

"Right," Gillian said softly.

"It's just gossip, Gill. They couldn't have been all that happy if she left him. Look, don't even worry about it." Jessica pushed a strand of hair behind Gillian's ear and smoothed a gentle hand down the top of her head. Normally this would have annoyed the younger girl, she wasn't somebodies' pet, but she found unexpected solace in the comforting touch of her older sister. It had been so long since someone had reached for her just because they wanted to.

Jessica was right, Rachel had left him, how happy could they have been? Maybe that's why she found solace in that wrecked, ruined look on his face. Maybe that's why she felt like she knew him –

She didn't of course. Paul had made that very clear. And in turn he didn't know anything about her either. His words come back to her and she wants to punch him in the jaw –

Had he boxed Rachel in the same way he'd lingered over her at the library? Had he snarled at her the way he snarled at Gillian? Had he ever smiled? Had Rachel made him smile –

She blanched.

"I'm not," Gillian shook her head, a bold faced lie if there ever was one, all the while determined not to think about Paul Lahote and his vanishing exotic girlfriend. She painted on a strangely calm smile. "besides, I'm leaving soon anyways, and I will never see him again."

It was true, in two weeks she'd be on the first plane out of here and she would never have to come back again. She would never see those sad wasteland eyes or those twisted scowling lips or that hard set jaw line or those perpetual hunched shoulders again.

In two weeks, she would be free of whatever weird mind spell he had put on her.

Jessica opened her mouth to say something, but Gillian shook her head, "If you plan on getting married you can very well come to me." At that Jess chuckled softly but Gillian couldn't fight the feeling that the older girl was still bothered.

"Alright, please tell me I'm beautiful, I desperately need validation." Angela called from the dressing room, she was clad in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Not the elegant beauty of a sophisticated bride, but she was stunning all the same. Jessica was quick to shower the girl with a slew of inappropriate comments, and Gillian nodded along quietly. But in her head, well, she was internally kicking herself for already breaking the silent promise she'd made earlier –

Because those dark, hooded, beastly eyes never left her mind. Not even once.


End file.
